


The Ship Has Sailed

by audi



Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: F/M, a little or maybe not little angst between aaron and emily, friendship between aaron and hannah, mention of alex kirkman’s death, mention of the disastrous emily/seth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 04:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19077493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audi/pseuds/audi
Summary: A Koda to Season 2 Episode 11: GriefWhile the President tries to process his grief, Emily tries to process hers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t see the point of the Emily-Seth thing. At all. So this is me, dealing with it while I bleach my brain.

Standard Disclaimers Apply. I do not own these characters, and I do not monetary gains upon publishing of this fiction. 

 

If I owned them, well. Let’s just say we’d all be seeing more Aaron here. 

 

—

 

She’s never seen him laugh like that. 

 

Emily shouldn’t be there, she has a thousand (literally, she has a list, and it’s more of an entire ream of yellow pad by now) things to do just for the next five hours alone, but when she saw Aaron heading down the corridor down to his (suspiciously farthest from hers) office (where the National Security advisor certainly did not have before the Capitol bombing), a folder in hand with Hannah Wells’ image blown up (inappropriately, she might add because why would Aaron need Hannah’s face printed in the entirety of an A4?), she found herself frozen midstep.

 

She had to take a minute (or five) to calm herself down (in the middle of the busiest crossing in the West Wing), because of Hannah fucking Wells’ picture and decidedly not the display of Aaron Shore’s throat, neck, and chest. Not that 2 unbuttoned buttons from a conservative long-sleeved shirt that’s practically uniform in the White House could actually show indecent amounts of skin moving sinuously against the best defined muscle this side of the western hemisphere but it was Aaron fucking Shore. 

 

Emily’s noticed the entire female population of the White House turning their heads to the point of her almost being 100% sure they are all possessed and in need of exorcism. And she’s sure it’s 100% — whether you identify as woman or an actual woman, or a woman who doesn’t even want cock. Then again. This is Aaron Shore. So. 

 

Emily at least hopes she’s frozen for more than a minute because the next thing she knows is the actual statuesque form of Hannah Wells, fine boned and small face, with a figure that could make any model from the runway an actual run for their money, walking (sauntering) past her and down Aaron’s corridor.

 

It’s actually the White House corridor but semantics. 

 

She tries to pry herself from where she stands, but her feet has yet to get the memo. She was relieved when she heard his voice almost immediately, meaning he and Hannah did not spend much time alone in his office (because Hannah Wells is a woman. A beautiful woman, who is smart, and powerful, and strong. Just like Aaron. He’s one of the strongest man Emily has ever known.) but. It’s like watching a train wreck. Emily has the perfect view of watching Aaron Shore stride down towards her, Hannah Wells beside him, and him, listening to her. And laughing. 

 

Her jaw dropped — she doesn’t remember seeing him like that, at least not for a long time. If at all. The creases of his eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners with his nose, how his lips curled upwards and showed his dimples, his highlighting his perfectly lined jaw. And Hannah Wells, pretty and strong and smart and superhero Hannah Wells, the cause of that laughter, who was smiling back.

 

She was never the cause of Aaron’s laughter, especially not in recent memory. Emily finds herself wanting that, a visceral sort of want that sours her mouth and turns her stomach. 

 

She’s jealous, and she knows, and that realization makes her turn on her heels before Aaron could see her struck agape. She walks fast, heels clacking against the marble floors, wishing nothing more than to be in her office, alone and safe. 

 

At the corner of her eye, she sees Seth talking to Lyor, the two engaged in a debate (again), judging from the way Seth had his arms spread upwards and outwards. 

 

Emily wanted to laugh, but she was afraid she was just going to cry. She’s a horrible woman, and a terrible friend.

 

She should be ashamed, shouldn’t she? She’s jealous over a man who isn’t even hers, who she pushed away and never even tried to actually apologise to, and she’s using another man, her friend, to move forward from her regret of losing said other man. The first man. The only man, if she was being honest, she ever wanted. 

 

By the time she reached her office, she nearly threw herself inside, leaning her entire weight on the door as she closed it. She should be ashamed, yes, but all she felt was jealousy. 

 

And she cannot even feel sorry for that. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love jealous Emily. And Aaron inadvertently feeding it. 
> 
> Insert evil cackle.

It doesn't help that Aaron and Hannah seemed to be attached to the hip these days. 

 

 _Penny_ seems to see Aaron more these days than she does, and she's supposed to actually be working  _with_ him.

 

Scratch Penny, she caught some of the Secret Service on break how  _Leo_ _and Aaron_ spent dinner together and had a recap.

 

_A recap._

 

Aaron fucking Shore and the President's teenage son spent a recap together which means he had time to himself.

 

Time he chose to spend with a teenager. 

 

It really isn't that he spent time with Leo that's her problem, it's that she and Seth and Lyor and Kendra had asked him if he wanted to join them in  _their_ own recap. And he brushed them off.

 

Have their paths really diverged so much they couldn't even be friends anymore? The lot of them?

 

(And most importantly, is it all her fault?)

 

...Or has what _not_ -transpired between them really just a footnote in the grand story of Aaron Shore's life?

 

It's amazing that this is the thought that resonates in her head even as their administration keep on taking water and sinking their already battered ship. 

 

(It's really a boat at this point. A boat of 6. Maybe 8, including Mike. 10, including Hannah Wells and Chuck.)

 

It's not that she's pining for Aaron. She really doesn't have a right to that. She's made her bed and she's going to lie on it. It's just that she can't take feeling the guilt and regret of being the cause of all the fall out. Sure, they all work great together. She's not deaf, she hears a lot of the junior staffers giving her, Aaron and Seth the monicker "The Big Three", and it used to make her laugh but she cannot and will not deny that it also makes her heart jump and her stomach break into butterflies. 

 

But then, there are also the closely guarded whispers of her being the office slut. First targeting Aaron when he was Chief of Staff, and since all were not privy to the investigation there are those who will always look at her with the stigma of using her being a woman that lead to Aaron's resignation. And  _then_ she chose to go out with Seth. Whether it was because of gratefulness for always being there, she also cannot say she was ever in love with the man.

 

The way she keeps on complicating her (non-existent) love life is more and more looking like a desperate move to deal with the bigger tragedies of her life.

 

The way that Aaron seemingly keeps himself available to everyone except anyone in their circle outside of their admittedly flexible office hours should be testament enough, yes? That he's moved on, that her on again, off again thing with Seth didn't even bother him at the least, that working with them was just that, working. That he has no ties with them beyond being a great team, that they're not really family anymore. Of their circle, Emily thinks that only Tom Kirkman is holding Aaron to them, which is funny in itself because of the inner circle it's really Aaron and the President who is always, at one point or another, in the opposing ends of a solution.

 

She laid her head upon the cool, hard wooden tabletop. 

 

She really does not want to think how she just might bring Tom Kirkman's presidency because of a bad call. 


End file.
